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ICAD season

Wow it's been 2 years since I've blogged! It feels like I'm starting over! It's been on my mind off and on for the past several months. I finally broke down and switched things up to be a bit more simple. I've really missed the days of the blogging community and all the many friends and inspiration. I'm hoping to be back at least once a week.

Last week started another year of ICAD (index card a day) This will be the 5th year I've participated. It's a fun challenge to get you in the habit of creating on a daily basis simply by using an index card and any other art supplies you may choose. All the details can be found over at Daisy Yellow.

Honestly I don't think I've made it all 61 days. I tend to get distracted with new things and then move onto something else. This year though I've been working on the #100dayproject and have made it through 60 days. So there is hope for me this year! I was reading a post in the the ICAD Facebook group about reasons to participate and how much it has helped others with various things. It got me thinking back to why I decided to join.

In March of 2011 our 16 year old daughter unexpectedly passed away in her sleep. She had been diagnosed 3 years prior to that with Type 1 diabetes. She passed away due to complications with her diabetes. There are a few posts I shared on my blog during this time if you are interested. This one and this one when I started a new blog. I may get back to that new blog as well. Anyways I've always loved painting, creating, and anything in between. Most of the time that's what you could find me doing in my spare time. I loved working on our house, making gifts and just creating. When this happened it was like taking my breath away as everything just fell down around me! I can honestly say it's one of the hardest things I've ever done. Pretty much anything I enjoyed doing just didn't seem to matter anymore or anything else for that matter. It was probably like this for the first 3 years and slowly with time it started to get better. I just had to really work at it. It was kind of like walking through life in a constant fog. I don't even remember how I stumbled on to finding ICAD that summer. I'm sure it was probably through someone on Facebook. So I figured what could it hurt to try and get back into something creative. My heart and soul just missed it, but for some reason just hadn't been up to it before. I had tried many times and would start and then the darkness and fog would over take me and I would just let it go. Maybe with creating on an index card there was no pressure of it needing to be a master piece or something that would hang on the wall. I could literally just slap some paint down and call it good. So I had my younger daughter who was almost 9 at the time join in with me. It was something we could do together and have some quality time. It honestly was a blessing for both of us! The daily work on these cards got me interested in my other stuff again. It was like it was slowly seeping it's way back into my creative heart. The group of mostly women was equally as amazing. So much support and sharing happened on a daily basis. It was good for my heart and soul! It really has been like a roller coaster with good and bad in between, but I'm so glad I took that step in getting back to my art. It honestly has helped me heal in ways I hadn't thought it could. Creating is just a huge part of me and always has been.

I'm hoping to share my cards weekly with you just for fun. I hope you follow along or better yet join in the process. This year I've decided to try and make use of my always growing scrap pile. So I' will be combining scraps from my vintage stash, hand painted papers, junk mail, or whatever else crosses my desk.

Card #1 was super simple, but fun! I had some leftover "under paper" (paper underneath when your painting to catch the extra) I had doodled some fun leaves on the paper and decided to cut them out and just glue down on my card.

Card #2 A little bit of everything. Some book text with a bit of oops paint, some doodled on paper, little pieces left from cutting out shapes and then a bit of doodling to top it off.

Card #3 Some vintage paper, pattern tissue, some doodled seeds that I had leftover, left over painted leaves, and completed with a reminder to myself to enjoy the process!

Card #4 For some reason I wasn't very fond of this one when I finished. Now that I've seen it several times I'm liking it a bit more. I had mixed up some gray paint on an index card for another project. I decided to just use it as the base. I added a piece of vintage paper that had been played with and hole punched, along with lots of other fun little painted extras in my pile. One of my favorite things to do is to add fun or quirky words straight from my old books. So this one received a title to finish it off.

If your interested in following along I will be putting together a board over on Pinterest. You can also find me over on Instagram. Have a wonderful day and thanks for following along!